


Black is the Color

by paintbox (imstillprettyodd)



Category: Led Zeppelin
Genre: Bron-Yr-Aur, Comfort, F/M, Folk Music, Nature, Spring, Stubble, Wales, a voice and a string instrument, good inspiration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-13 00:55:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28644825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imstillprettyodd/pseuds/paintbox
Summary: Between rehearsals, Monica joins Jimmy in Bron-yr-aur to relax.
Relationships: Jimmy Page/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 2





	Black is the Color

Jimmy is pliant in the grass with his vest pulled up to his chin. Shaded sunlight falls on him, turns him subtle, and Monica breathes out loud. His hat has fallen from his head and lies abandoned in the field. She kneels beside him and rests her gaze on his face. 

Closed eyes and bated breath, Jimmy waits as her finger slides between two shirt buttons. His chest skips. He laughs lemon-toned. 

“Your hands, Moni. Freezing.”

His eyelids part and his body tenses in effort to move, but she stops him at the shoulder. 

“Let me have you.” She resists. 

A sleep-weak smile holds Jimmy’s face, loose and low. Midday sounds crowd across the countryside — birds in song, leaf-tossing wind, a dog barking somewhere in the distance. His hum joins them and he settles again, helping to untuck his pale shirt from his jeans. 

“This is where I want to be.” Monica bites her lip and places her palm flat against his stomach, over his navel. The heat of his blood dilates her. She shuts her eyes and breathes deeply. 

She feels the hard pads of his fingers pass over her knuckles. The grass crinkles as he reaches for her arm and tugs. Down with him in the dirt. 

“Are you hungry?” He asks. But Maureen made them a feast for breakfast: orange juice, fish cooked in oil, tomatoes and sausage on bread. She shakes her head and remembers how, during their morning walk, she promised she would cook tonight’s dinner. Maureen, her daughter in tow, and Monica slipped down to the creek, the little girl in her mother’s arms on the way there and then in Monica’s on the trip back up. The ground there was muddy and thick; Monica took off her sandals and squished her toes into the earth. 

Coming back, they found Jimmy and Robert near the fire, scribbling and strumming and making noise with their mouths. Monica bounced the baby on her knee as Robert stomped and clapped. 

The days remain nearly the same, ending when Monica finds Jimmy alone in his room after dinner. _You’re full?_ A daily ask. _Yes, are you?_ She warms his nose with kisses and climbs over to bring him inside her.

In the cold earth and dead grass, she stretches. “I’m thinking,” she says out loud before he has to ask, “about how sometimes I forget you.” Her brows furrow. She looks to him for understanding and finds an open, waiting face and his touch warm on the back of her head. “When we’re apart, or even when we’re together, you turn into a feeling for me. An ache. Right here.” She places her fist in the center of his chest, at the flat plane of his sternum. “It’s so present that I’m afraid it will just take over and you won’t come to me in images, but in this feeling . . . and I’ll forget what you look like.”

Monica’s shoulders clench. Out of the corner of her eye, skinny, leafless trees stretch into the gray sky like boney offerings. Fatigue suddenly wraps around her. His arms pull her out of it until her face is in the soft cotton of his shirt. A button presses against her forehead. She bears the hug full on and makes up her mind that she could fall asleep here. 

Amidst the soundtrack of the wind, he speaks and the noise rumbles through to her. “I can’t imagine you’d forget what I look like, what with all your photographs.” 

She giggles and curls, "I need a good look." The grass crunches and wets beneath as she crawls to cradle his face.

His hair is shiny and healthy, lips bright pink. A shadow beard creeps over his cheeks and chin. Monica runs her folded fingers up and down his face and feels the prickle of sensation that causes Jimmy to close his eyes and smile. That pressure in her chest aches like a heavy belly. She gives kisses to the fullness of his cheeks, the laughter lines surrounding his mouth, the tip of his nose. His joy makes her laugh.

Monica feels the same as she does when she recognizes her body in this place. With the smell of it, muddy, from bird baths or none at all, she knows herself. Bron-yr-aur is where she can recline. Jimmy can pull back the curtains and find her easily here. 

Beneath, Jimmy’s smile dims when he lifts his head, eyes cast toward the cottage. Robert saunters with a walking stick in his hand. His laugh peppers the air. 

"Knew I'd find you down here," he shouts. He stops before the ground valleys out and gestures behind. "Mo needs help with the food."

Monica rises and helps Jimmy adjust his shirt, tucking the edge back into his jeans and rolling his vest down. They both stand and she watches leaf litter fall from their legs. He picks his hat from the ground and places it on his head. 

"What's for tonight?" He asks. 

Robert shrugs and jams the stick into the earth. "Not sure. Something to take away the cold, I think."

They start toward the house. Monica follows behind and settles her gaze in the warmth of Jimmy’s shoulders, where his hair kisses, where she likes to bury her face. "I'm making it," she tells them. "How 'bout soup?"

"Good," Robert says and rolls his shoulders. "You like it here, Monica?" He turns around to look at her, his curls splashing. 

"Very much. I think I could live here, if I tried."

He voice shakes in amusement. "Live off the land?"

"That's always what I wanted. Did I ever tell you about my dream of a ranch, Jimmy?"

The threshold into the cottage brings a hearty heat. Robert takes off his shoes. Monica sheds herself of Jimmy's coat and hangs it by the door. Maureen is in the candlelit kitchen, dark against the dim light coming through the window. She welcomes them. 

"No, what about it?" Jimmy murmurs. He lounges on the loveseat and unties his shoes. At first, Maureen was bothered by the lack of a dining room, but now she crowds around the small coffee table with the rest of them and eats her meals.

Monica drifts into the kitchen. "Well, I've always wanted to raise horses." Maureen is stirring a pot of water. 

"Oh, I didn't know that," Maureen says. She is half-reluctant as Monica takes over the boiling potatoes, passing the spoon and chuckling. She hovers behind Monica's shoulder.

"But I couldn't imagine selling them. Maybe I'd start a riding school. I'm . . . I've got this, Mo." Monica smiles in a cloud of steam. 

"Just making sure." She joins Robert and Jimmy by the fireplace and checks on her sleeping daughter, swaddled in blankets on one side of the sofa.

"To teach children?" Jimmy's voice asks.

Monica hums and nods. "But, I'm not sure what I want yet."

"Will I live on your ranch?"

She shivers, preoccupied with the cutting board. "If you wanted to."

The conversation ends and doubles over, absorbed into Robert's story about a boy he knew in school. Monica fades into her work as the light outside darkens. The rhythm of the food carries her, leaning to chop vegetables and take new pans from the cabinets. The stiff throb inside her chest returns. From the frame of the kitchen, she watches Maureen and Robert talk with animation. 

Beside them, Jimmy's caught her eye: a shared grin and the dance of the candle flame. 


End file.
